The efficacy estimates Pfizer has offered for its COVID-19 vaccine for young children are being dismissed as unreliable even as the shot is being readied to be administered to millions of American toddlers and babies.
A Pfizer clinical trial for children aged 6 months to 5 years pegged the efficacy at 80.3 percent overall—82.3 percent for children aged 2 to 5, and 75.5 percent for kids 6 months to 2 years.
But those estimates were determined “not to be reliable due to the low number of COVID-19 cases that occurred in study participants,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement on June 17.
The estimates were based on just 10 COVID-19 cases—seven among kids who received a placebo, and three among those who received the vaccine. All occurred after Feb. 7….